Surprise Gift
by Flames101
Summary: For Jekkah, for the JJ/Hotch Safe Haven Facebook Group V-day Exchange. JJ's alone this Valentine's Day and is forced to spend it with strangers. Little does she know that she's about to receive a surprise gift. JJ/Hotch!


**A/N:** Hey all! This story is for Jekkah for the Valentine's Day Exchange over on the Facebook group: JJ-Hotch Safe Haven—come join us if you want a great place to talk JJ/Hotch. Anyways, the prompts included are: champagne, chocolate covered strawberries and a surprise gift. Hope you enjoy!

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Criminal Minds.

**Surprise Gift:**

* * *

As the waiter passed her by, JJ grabbed yet another glass of champagne off the tray he was holding—was this her third or fourth? She couldn't remember. All she knew was that she needed its fortifying power to get her through this horrible evening.

_Uh oh,_ she thought quickly as a tall, blonde-haired Bradley Cooper look-a-like made eye contact with her. He shot her a toothy grin and began to make his way towards her. _Crap!_ Damn Garcia for dressing her up in this flimsy, lacy black cocktail dress. And while she was cursing her so-called best friend, damn her for making her go to this stupid singles Valentine's party in the first place.

JJ did not want to be here, did not want to spend the night with a bunch of strangers, and she sure as heck did not want to chat it up with this rom-com-actor-imitation. There was only one thing she wanted, scratch that, only one man she wanted and Garcia had told her in no uncertain terms that it wasn't happening.

_Fine._ She got that he was supposedly happily involved with another woman. Never mind the fact that the woman was absolutely wrong for him and that she _chose_ to live in a city that wasn't where he was. _Fine._ She knew she couldn't say anything because it wasn't her place. But why did Garcia think it was all right for her to hook-up with some random guy instead.

A one night stand wasn't going to make her forget _him_. Hell, not even becoming pregnant and marrying the father of her child had allowed her to forget. And Will had figured it out pretty quickly, that her heart didn't belong to him and this guy, approaching her, sure as heck wasn't going to be any different. He, too, would soon realize that she had nothing to offer him either.

Needing a bit of courage, she went for another sip of her glass but found it empty. _Now when did that happen?_

Before she could go in search of even more champagne, the man suddenly stood before her. He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it almost immediately. The smile on his face faded just as quickly and he made his retreat. _Awesome, score one for my un-sub glare,_ she thought, elatedly. It was the one she saved especially for the scum of the earth. Turns out the expression also did the trick on would be suitors.

Alone again, JJ glanced around the packed hotel hall room. Bradley Cooper would not be the last she'd have to contend with, she surmised grimly. She would have left long ago if it weren't for Garcia's outright threat. The woman had actually iterated to her that if she as so much as put a toe outside the hotel before ten pm she'd make it so she'd never existed. Seriously, the crazy woman had threatened to erase her identity. It was ridiculously funny. Except for the fact that JJ completely believed her.

Oh well, she'd endure it for—she looked down at her watch—another hour and then she was free. At least she didn't want for liquid courage, the waiters kept it coming; she snatched up another glass, and sipped at it quickly. She would get her fill of drinks, check out the food and be done with everyone here.

Turning to search for the snacks table, she was extremely surprised to see Mr. Cooper heading her way. _Wait a second, did he have amnesia or something?_ Had she not just given him the ultimate turn-off look? That glare made the grisliest of un-subs shake, what was wrong with this guy?

She tried again, putting all her power into the narrow squint of her eyes, into the upturned curl of her upper lip. Come on, she was practically snarling at the guy and, to her dismay, he kept coming.

At a loss for what to do, she started to back away, walking backwards, quickly. She was going at a good pace, until she inevitably crashed into someone.

_Crap!_ More talking to people she didn't want to talk to. But she turned around nonetheless. She had to apologize, after all.

Her eyes first made contact with a broad, hard looking chest, covered in a crisp white shirt, suit jacket and tie. And then she saw it, the clip on the tie. She knew that clip. She'd had it custom made, after all. It was a birthday gift to—her eyes drifted upwards, tentatively, dark brown eyes stared down at her, expression blank, but there was mirth in those eyes—Hotch.

"H…Hotch," she stuttered disbelievingly. What was he doing here? How could he be here? This was a singles party and didn't she know that he was so very attached to Beth.

_Oh, this is embarrassing._ She felt her cheeks turn cherry tomato red.

"Miss, miss?" a voice said from close by.

Blue-eyed Bradley stood next to them. _Man, the guy didn't give up._ "Listen, buddy, I'm just not interested all right? Will you give the chase a rest, please?"

The man gave her a bewildered, dubious look. He was silent a moment before he was suddenly looking at her like she'd lost her mind.

"I'm not chasing you, lady," he began, surprising her.

"Y… you're not?"

"No," he said curtly. He held out her red clutch. "You dropped this."

She took her purse from him. How could she have not realized that she'd lost purse? _Geez,_ she must have had more glasses of champagne than she'd thought. "Oh." She blushed furiously, her whole face was flaming. "Thanks," she added lamely.

The man turned on his heel abruptly; she heard him mutter as he went, "Psycho."

JJ put her head into her hands, covering her face. She was mortified. To make matters worse, she'd had an audience to her humiliation. And not just any audience, Hotch, the man she couldn't have.

"JJ?" he said from behind her.

Surprised to hear his voice, even though she knew he was right behind her, she jumped and whirled around to attempt to face him. Except it didn't really go that way, instead of whirling around, she spun out of control almost falling flat on her face. But before she introduced her face to the tiles, hands suddenly caught her up, steadying her.

She looked up to see Hotch eyeing her concernedly. That would be all fine if there weren't two Hotch's giving her the worried eye.

_Man, how much did I have to drink?_

"JJ, how much did you have to drink?" he echoed her thoughts.

_She was psychic! _she thought ecstatically, giggling happily.

Hotch frowned at her deeply, reminding her that she probably wasn't in her right mind.

"Too much," she conceded.

"Come on," he said before placing a guiding arm around her shoulders. JJ sunk into that touch, savoring it. Ok, she didn't just sink into the touch; she snuggled closer to his body. At this point, she'd take it when she could get it, and if he said anything she'd blame it on the fact that she was drunk.

To his credit, he didn't say anything about her close proximity, just continued to help her off somewhere. _Hmm…_ She wondered if she could get away with a hand on his butt too. Before she could give it a try, though, they'd suddenly come to a halt and Hotch's hand came away from her shoulders making her feel very sad suddenly.

She looked up to see that they'd come to the snacks table, just the place she'd been looking for before 'the incident' as she was already calling it.

"Here," Hotch said to her, voice gentle. He held out a plate of various items. "It isn't much, but I think we need to get something into that stomach of yours."

She took the plate from him, enjoying the knowing grin on his face. Except, a second later she realized that what he knew was that she was drunk and that he was laughing at her. She tried to get annoyed with him, but found that he was too cute when he grinned like that to be angry with.

"Why don't we sit down?" he said rhetorically. She nearly jumped out of her skin when he took her hand to once again lead her. JJ tried to compose herself when he looked back at her to give her a considering look.

He led them to a little area where they'd set up tables for potential couples to sit. They sat down, Hotch letting go of her hand. He was spoiling her today, two skin-to-skin moments in less than ten minutes; it was something special all right, Happy Valentine's Day to her.

He held her gaze for a moment more and then looked down. "Eat," he urged her. She followed his gaze to the plate of chocolate covered strawberries and chocolates that he'd piled on for her. She chose a strawberry, popping it into her mouth just as he asked. "So… how's this going for you?"

JJ could tell, he was laughing at her again. She chewed the strawberry slowly, giving herself time to come up with a response. The thing was, if it was any other day, with any other of her friends, she could probably joke with them or give them a thorough scolding for making fun. But this was Hotch, the guy she'd been secretly in love with since the moment she'd met him. The minute her mouth was free, she blurted out, "What are you doing here, Hotch?"

She didn't expect the smile that formed on his face. It wasn't a mean smile, or even a mocking smile, or a 'ha ha, I caught you at a pathetic singles V-day party' smile. It was a genuine one, full of fondness and something else, just for her. It took her breath away momentarily.

"Garcia sent me," he let her know simply.

She scrunched up her nose as she tried to make sense of what he'd just said. "Gar… Garcia sent you," she echoed slowly. "But why? She sent me here too, but I'm single, you're not."

"I am," he again said shortly.

"You're what?" she asked, not following.

He chuckled. "I'm single," he said as if it were obvious.

It so was not obvious. He was still seeing Beth, of course. Wasn't he? Didn't Hotch know what the definition of single was?

"But… but…" she sputtered out, more confused than ever.

Hotch reached across the table, pulling her hands into his. Her eyes widened to the size of saucers at the gesture. And when the pads of his thumbs began to rub circles into her palms, well, she too far gone for words.

"I've been single for over a month now," he let her know. "You see, Beth and I never stood chance. Something stood in our way."

"What?" JJ blurted out curiously.

"You."

JJ searched his dark eyes as he watched her intently. Where was that earlier mirth and amusement? Surely he was laughing at her again. Making fun of her. But, nope, all she saw when she looked into his eyes was his feelings for her, how much he cared for her, how much he wanted to be with her, how much he loved her. It sent shivers down her spine.

"Wow…" she breathed out.

Hotch laughed again, bringing her knuckles up to his lips. She shivered outright. "Yeah… I've liked you for a long time now, JJ. And when Garcia found out and told me you might like me too—"

"She told you?" she cut him off, blushing. "I'm going to kill her!"

He smiled at her. "JJ, that doesn't matter… what matters is that we can be together, if you'd like?"

He was right. It didn't matter that Garcia had practically tricked her into all this, had told her most intimate secret to the person it was about, too. No, that didn't matter. What mattered was that they were here, now, together.

She smiled back at him. "Garcia said there'd be a surprise gift at the end of the night that I'd just love, I never imagined or even dared to believe it would be you…"

Hotch leaned across the table to capture her lips with his own. Their first kiss! she mused wildly. It was everything she'd imagined and more. A kiss filled with love and passion and hope for the future.

In that moment, only one thought was on her mind, _Best Valentine's Day ever!_

* * *

Well, there it is. I really hope you all enjoyed it. And I really hope I did your prompts justice, Jekkah.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!


End file.
